


moonlight's birthday

by vinpire



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinpire/pseuds/vinpire
Summary: It's Halloween!The X-Blood have better plans.aka,Fanon birthday for Vintage fic!
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	moonlight's birthday

**Author's Note:**

> I CRIED FIVE TIMES WRITING THIS

"Rise and shine, Vinny!" The inkling in question didn't even hear the full sentence before he was brutally awoken by his curtains getting pulled to the sides, letting the autumn sun take up the entire room with it's radiant glow. At the very least his teammate was more gentle when he got closer to the bed. "You've never been this excited for halloween." Double's smiles usually never reached his concealed eyes, but today was a rather different day overall. "Nah, today is special." Mismatched aqua and ruby eyes met a pure, blood red as Vintage slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes as they adjusted to the new light in the room. "Omega's gonna make breakfast, so take ya time wakin' up, okay? No rush." That was... Odd. Did they think he was sick because he slept in? Vintage did mostly everything in their apartment. That included chores and especially cooking, both of which he was fine with. They rarely ever stepped in to help, or even took over entirely, it was only whenever Vintage was sick or otherwise unable that they would. Yet he was perfectly fine this morning. Well, physically. Maybe they could tell. Hopefully not. Before he even had the opportunity to protest, Double had left the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts. What was so special about today to them...?

Despite that oddity, breakfast went as usual. Red and Double being loud as always as Omega smiled softly watching them. Vintage could only blankly stare into the void, head and stomach tied in knots. Even though he was eating fast his mind was at a standstill. _"Nah, today is special."_ kept replaying in his mind, a broken record of Double's voice that was almost taunting him at this point. It drowned out his surroundings, to the point of he missed an entire conversation they had about going out somewhere. "Is Vin... Ok?" Only now did the three notice that he wasn't listening at all. Eyes were completely unfocused, staring straight ahead but not looking at anything. "Oi, Vinny." Double reached over, giving him a quick few taps on the shoulder which turned to shaking after there was no reaction. With a sigh, he squished his cheeks with one hand, which had snapped him right back into reality. "What are you doing?" Even though he hadn't even really seen him Vintage immediately knew the culprit. Well, it was just a question of 'who else would do that'. Instead of an actual response, all Double could do is laugh. "Alright, alright. We should get going before it's the afternoon."  
"Where?" Vintage had blurted it out on accident, sinking back into his seat when he noticed. He was terrified of being left behind. It showed on his face, but he would never admit it verbally. Much like most of his fears, really. "Hey, we'd never leave ya behind, Vinny." With his shades off it's like Double read all of Vintage's emotions so simply. "Just gotta go and grab some stuff last minute, yeah? It's fuckin' freezing out there, though."

The famously known as cold blooded X-Blood were surprisingly warm on a day like this, and it was in fact, not the coats. Red Sole took the lead this time around, practically skipping ahead of the rest to go and take photos of decorations she wanted to revisit when the full moon had made it's way over. Although they would occasionally have to run over a bit to come look at something she was literally jumping with excitement over, or to stop her from trespassing, the other three took their time. Double had a habit of trying to see how far he could kick pinecones, or otherwise throw them if they didn't go as far as he hoped, with Vintage as his only impulse control to prevent him from breaking something. They always went out together like this, but today felt... Different. _Special_.

"Why are we waiting outside?" Vintage spoke through a yawn, stretching his legs out against the air. Him and his other tiny teammate, Red Sole, had both seated themselves on a somewhat nearby bench in favour of standing by the store. Actually, they weren't too different in height, Vintage just wore insoles. "'Cause you're too sleepy to walk properly and I'll buy a bunch of useless stuff." At least she was honest. The entire way there, Vintage walked the slowest, at points struggling to keep his eyes open or to put one foot in front of the other. Every single time they had gone out with money to not spend on food, it was usually Red Sole that burnt through their savings, so she would- mostly out of respect for the others- give herself either a tight budget or spend little to nothing at all. A bad habit, of sorts. Ignoring the slight ache in his legs from the way he was walking, Vintage changed his focus to Red Sole, flicking through the pictures she took on her phone. "Do ya think we'll see more on the way back?" She was like this around Christmas too, always insisting on going on night walks with someone to go look at all the decorations people had put up. At least with Halloween she had trick or treating as an excuse to drag all of them out with her.

Double took it upon himself to carry all of the bags back, being physically the strongest of them all- although Omega was slowly catching up- as this time around Red Sole and Vintage both made their way far up ahead, taking some odd turns here and there just to take pictures. Red Sole was a better photographer, whilst Vintage was practically a model. In fact, he had got modelling career offers in the past but denied them in favor of ranked, with only the promise of "maybe some other time" to keep them at least interested. They made quite a duo. Even one time Red Sole took the camera from a journalist just to get a better picture of her teammate, namely Omega, upset at the angle of all things. Has she ever taken a single photography class? Nope. Does she plan on it ever? Nah. Is she still going to verbally beat up professionals for getting bad pictures of her team? Absolutely. By the time they got home, it was nearly the afternoon, Omega taking the bags from Double to hide them off somewhere. "Should we just order takeout? I don't feel like going back out, my legs hurt." Red Sole had flung herself onto the sofa immediately, Vintage calmly taking a spot on the floor to not bother her. ...Ah, right. They didn't have enough to cook anything at the moment unless Vintage or Omega came up with their own recipe, which it's likely neither of them could do. Without even asking where to order from, Omega had already called up a place and went upstairs. "Man, those two are quiet." Vintage responded with a nod before reaching for the remote, hoping to find at least something interesting to watch until the food got here.

Previous years, X-Blood focused more on scaring the kids (but not too much that they ran away before they could get any candy) that came around their house to trick or treat than actually enjoying Halloween at all. They spent an hour handing out candy, Red Sole nearly crying over how cute some costumes she saw were, before deciding to walk through Inkopolis together in their costumes. This time around they were all demons of sorts, Red Sole naturally going for a more cutesy look with a long sleeved dress that only went to her knees and had multiple layers for maximum poof, whilst Omega and Double both went for a more refined or fancy sort. Suits with these incredibly professional looking horns considering they were costumes. They blended so well into their tentacles, they looked almost real. Vintage was like a balance between the two, given he was also wearing a dress (by Red Sole's request) but it was certainly more refined in appearance than Red Sole's. Last year they had gone for orange and purple due to the splatfest, this time favoring a black and red colour scheme, new ink colour to match. Their makeup was all done by Vintage (for the first time, since no one actually even knew he could do makeup at all before) with help from Double here and there, even though he knew next to nothing about makeup, whilst the costumes were mostly coordinated by Omega. Red Sole was in charge of everything else, perfectly content with her roles. Halloween seemed to be the one holiday X-Blood shined in the most, even outdoing the monarchs.

But that wasn't the point to this year at all.

They had been out for just a little over an hour, finally on their way home when as they started to approach the gate Vintage suddenly found himself at a standstill, confused over how oddly dark it seemed to quickly get until he realised the painfully obvious, someone had covered his eyes. "Why are you-"  
"You trust us, right?" Omega's voice came from the left side. Given how Red Sole had already gone past the gate, it had to be Double behind him. He tried to process what was going on, but just like in the morning- all he got was a tangled mess of thoughts, mind coming up completely blank. _Some kind of trick...?_ Clearly he must've been shaking, not necessarily from the cold- "Ya don't gotta be scared. We ain't gonna do something we know ya won't like." It was definitely Double. Vintage caved in and stopped trying to figure it all out, nodding slowly. The two of them helped guide him inside, the excited giggles from Red Sole and Omega shushing her being a bit comforting in all his confusion.

"Keep ya eyes closed, ok Vinny?"  
"But-"  
"Trust us!"

There was footsteps, clearly the sound of something being moved slightly, yet no one spoke. It was a bit suffocating if he had to be honest- he woke up confused and was _still_ confused now.   
"Okay, okay, now open them!"

When he opened his eyes, Vintage got what may have been the biggest, but honestly best, shock of his life. Something that answered all of his questions in an instant- something he would never forget, ever.

"Happy Birthday, Vintage!"

It was a party. Not for Halloween. But for Vintage. Not those small 'parties' they would occasionally hold after tournaments. A birthday party. _Vintage's birthday._ The day he hadn't celebrated for years. The day he was certain no one even knew to begin with. The day that no one else seemed to ever care for before in the past. What could only be described as euphoria hit Vintage like a wave, as he dropped to his knees and couldn't do anything but happily sob. His three teammates, the ones who spent the entire month planning in secret for this, had joined him on the floor- surrounding him in a group hug which X-Blood didn't normally have many of. Through all the tears he kept murmuring "thank you", even if it came out sounding like something else, they knew what he meant. "Thank you for being here, Vintage." That sentence only made him cry even more, thankfully they were tears of joy. _He hadn't felt this happy in forever._ He had no clue how to process all of the emotions he was feeling, everything coming out in sobs. It wasn't just the X-Blood present, either, which was one of the most surprising things amongst everything. Not only did they manage to organize a birthday party in their house without him knowing, they actually got others to show up? Even Team Emperor was there, despite them supposedly being busy with planning their own party the whole month. It was too much, but not in a bad way. Everything in this moment was okay. For once, everything was alright. Nothing to worry about, not even the slightest hint of fears or sadness. It was all bright.

That party lasted right up until 4AM, even though it wasn't his birthday anymore by then. Seeing Vintage so happy seemed to give everyone enough energy to stay up all night, even though a few seemed so tired they could barely stand initially. Now that it was just the X-Blood alone, back in their own clothes instead of the costumes, they were all huddled together on the sofa. Red Sole had started to fall asleep, Omega still finding spots of makeup she didn't take off whilst Double was holding onto Vintage who mostly seemed tired only from all the crying. They would all fall asleep with the moon, both the real one, and theirs.


End file.
